


Tell Them That I Miss Our Little Talks

by poetrydivided (orphan_account)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Tell Them That I Miss Our Little Talks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/poetrydivided
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She isn’t dead.</p><p>If she were dead, Lexa would know. </p><p>She'd feel it in her bones. She'd see it in her sleep.</p><p>Love is a bond that connects us in more ways than meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right._

**_Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear._ **

_\--_

 

She isn’t dead.

If she were dead, Lexa would know. 

She’d suddenly break out into a cold sweat, her hands would shake with the soul she no longer holds. There’d be an unmistakable lump in her throat, a burning. Every limb and organ would grow too heavy to carry, and she’d imagine them turning black, rotting. “Get it out,” She’d demand, struggling to get her knife back from one of her guards. “Get this goddamn thing out of me.”

She’d rip out her heart if it meant stopping the pain that comes with death.

She’d feel it in her bones.

She isn’t dead. 

That’s not what they keep telling her, of course. Both the Sky People and Grounders agree Lexa is losing it. Randoms, people she can’t even name because they’re so insignificant, hold an intervention every week. “We’re losing our Commander,” They plead. “Please, Heda, forget her.”

They don’t understand what it’s like to lose someone, never mind more than once. Lexa’s own people, and they are strangers when it comes to empathy. She tries to understand, because she’s led them this way, hasn’t she? The Grounders are raised on cold traditions where blood must have blood regardless of potential excuses. They’d kill each other if Lexa commanded as much. They aren’t the Sky People. They’re _warriors_.

Lexa wishes she had taught them differently.

She has no one to talk to, not even Indra. Everyone thinks she is going crazy, all because she still has hope.

It’s something Clarke would have done-

“What is it?” 

Lexa snaps her head up, her eyes scanning the tent that seems unfamiliar for a moment before she remembers where she is. When she does, she tenses, her shoulders straining. The tent feels more structural than it should, like she’s actually in a muted building rather than something cultural and urban built from true Grounders. The cot, with pillows lining the edges rather than the one end, is supposed to look like a couch. Lexa does not understand why the Sky People try so hard to modernize things. It just makes it harder for her to concentrate.

She clenches her jaw, staring past the two women seated in front of her. 

There is no kindness in her eyes. She doesn’t have time for kindness. Not anymore.

Abby sighs behind her clipboard. “You’re doing it again, Lexa.” 

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Lexa tilts her chin higher, clears her throat.

There is only one point she sees in these therapy-sorry, _coping-_ sessions. It isn’t about Clarke, about moving on from her and forgetting her like she never meant anything. Like just because she hasn’t returned in a few months she’s supposedly dead, and therefore the people have to act as much. It isn’t about coping with that grief.

Lexa is taking responsibility. She’s the leader, the Commander. She has to act as much. If she wasn’t consistently checking in with Abby, if she wasn’t seen entering the tent every week-

Her people would lose faith in her, too. She can’t afford that.

“You’re hiding,” Abby says. She checks something off on her clipboard then lays it on her lap, folding her elbows onto it and resting her chin above her crossed hands. 

She’s trying to look sincere, her eyes widening against Lexa’s, expectant, as if searching for an answer. She wants to break the barrier between them, authority admonished. She just wants Lexa to talk. To communicate more than a handful of words, to _try._  

But just because Lexa attends the sessions, does not mean she has to speak. Word won’t get out. All anyone cares is that she’s here.

Mostly, anyway.

“You’ll be contemplating something,” Abby continues. “Thinking of an answer to a question, considering how you feel about something, maybe even just wondering off in thought. But when you do so, you’re still.”

Lexa raises a brow. She’s noticed this long before Abby has.

“But then you twitch, as if you were trying to shake off a thought. You shake your head, or you shiver, or you-“

Lexa clears her throat again. “I understand.” 

It’s not like she can control it. It’s an impulse, mindless. Like when you’re struggling to fall asleep and your foot twitches, or your face pinches up against cold wind. 

Or when you’re trying not to think about the one person you love the most, that one person who knows every secret though they’ve never had to ask-

“You just did it again,” Abby says.

“It’s simply a physical deformity.” Lexa breathes roughly through her nose, frustrated. “It’s a trait, one I’ve always had. It’s nothing to take note of.”

She does not know why she feels the need to defend herself, especially against Clarke’s own-

_Dammit._ She sighs again, leveling her eyes with Abby’s. For a moment, she wants to open up. She wants to explain how this idea that _She’s_ dead is outrageous, that it shouldn’t be accepted until they find _her_ remains. She wants to say she’s scared; of all the war; the lives at risk; the possibility that _she_ might be dead.

She wants to tell Abby that her daughter’s name is a trigger, and Lexa can’t seem to find the safety switch.

But she isn’t that stupid. No wise commander would let their guard down-

But then she remembers; _not everyone, not you-_

“I just wish you’d talk to us, Lexa.” Abby shares a look with Raven, who sits back on the cot, her shoulders slumped, her brow curved. “You know you don’t have to pretend around us-“

“Who said I was pretending?” Lexa snaps, or at least has the intent of snapping until her voice thins. She clears her throat for the up tenth time. “There is simply nothing to talk about. You and I both know the only reason I”m here is for my people. I don’t need to talk.”

Raven sighs under her breath, “You’re acting like a child.”

“You’re one to speak.”

Raven raises a brow, and Lexa raises her own in return. A challenge.

“Okay,” Raven stands up from the cot, brushes some dust off her pants. “You wanna know the truth, _commander?_ ‘You ain’t _shit._ ” She dips her chin when she says it, a dry chuckle behind her words. 

Abby tries to stop her and grabs onto her wrist, but Raven shakes her off, continuing. She steps closer to Lexa, whose still seated on the opposite cot.

“You’re so concerned with how your people view you? Maybe you should, I don’t know, actually get _help._ You think just because you don’t show emotion means you have none. You think you’re the only one hurting, Lexa?”

Lexa clenches her jaw.

“You need to learn to move on. Clarke’s _dead_ , Lexa! She’s _fucking dead_ and you need to accept it-“

“You don’t know that-“

“Like _hell_ I don’t! You think you’re _so_ heartbroken because you lost someone you loved? We _all_ lost someone we loved, Lexa. We’re _all_ still hurting. You are the last person who should be this delusional over her.”

Lexa rises now, charging at Raven. She can’t stop herself; her arm barres against Raven’s neck, driving her against the solid wall of the tent, the one reinforced with wood in case of storm, the one Clarke suggested-

Lexa slams Raven against the wall a second time.

“You knew her for a _months,_ ” Raven says. “You don’t get to be this fucking depressed. You worry about your _own_ people, we’ll worry about ours.”

Lexa thinks she might just do it, might just strangle Raven right here and now. She has every right to be upset. She has every right to still have hope, to be _delusional._ She may not have known Clarke as long as Raven, and definitely not as long as Abby has. 

But the thing about love is that it’s spontaneous. It is not constrained to one specific period of time, for it is free and reckless. It can take years for it to fully develop, or it can take _months._ She loved Clarke-

She _loves_ Clarke. And that’s how she knows the girl is alive. 

If she were dead, she’d know. If she’s sleeping at night, if she’s breathing, if she’s able to act human;

Clarke is alive. She _is._

_She has to be._

Lexa realizes she’s being yanked back by Abby. She stares into Raven’s eyes one last time, contrasting colors fighting to see whose is the most dark.

She sees hate in Raven’s eyes. She wonders if her own eyes are the same.

Lexa allows herself to be restrained.

“What the hell was that?” Abby releases Lexa and charges for Raven. “Do you have any idea-“ She stops, listening to the heavy pants of both girls. 

She turns to face Lexa. “Get out of here, Lexa.” She sounds like a disappointed parent, a principal hustling a lost cause.

It shouldn’t hurt Lexa this much, and for a moment she wonders if it’s a projection of what Clarke would’ve felt-

“ _Please_ , Lexa,” Abby sighs. “You don’t have to come back if you don’t want to. Just give us some time to cool off.”

If it were Clarke, she wouldn’t walk away, not without justifying her offense. She’d entice Raven further, and annoy Abby while she’s at it. She’d make sure everyone knew her presence was a burden not to be toiled with. Like a child.

But it isn’t Clarke. It’s Lexa.

Clarke isn’t here.

Her hands halt just as she’s halfway out the tent. She turns her head, just slightly so Raven and Abby can hear her.

“She isn’t dead,” Lexa says.

“When she’s dead, I’ll let you know.”

 

—

 

Later that night, when she hears the folding of her tent flaps, Lexa plays with the knife at her worktable, back turned.

“You don’t have to apologize, Raven.” She reaches for the block of wood on the table, starts running her knife against it. “I understand where you are coming from. A loss of hope is a heavy one.”

Raven doesn’t reply.

Lexa sighs. “Or maybe you didn’t come here to apologize. Maybe you still feel the same and Abby is forcing you to talk to me.” She shrugs. “That is fine, too. Just know that my beliefs are not changing.”

Again, silence.

Lexa retracts her knife, her elbow bending back. Her other hand reaches for the pocket knife in her coat.

“If Clarke were dead,” She takes a step backwards. “I would know. Just like how you know when Bellamy or Octavia is in trouble, I know when Clarke is in danger. She can handle herself, Raven. She is not dead.”

She checks one more time for a reply, for a hesitation of breath or some signal that Raven really is here, and when she hears nothing, Lexa whirrs around.

The knife strikes the wall perfectly, pinning the shirt of the intruder against the tent wall-

Lexa blinks. She blinks again, and again, and some more. Her breathing grows more violent, her nose and mouth struggling to get enough oxygen-

She thinks this is it. The moment where she truly loses everything, where she cannot even trust herself never mind her surroundings. She thinks she feels tears behind her lashes, a scream rummaging in her throat-

The other knife slips through her hands. 

She feels _everything_ slip through her hands.

Because this isn’t real-

Because-

“Hello, Lexa.”

 


	2. Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What a feeling it is to see someone alive when they should be dead.

 

What a feeling it is, for your lungs to shrink and constrict against the worlds of oxygen it attempts to drag in. For your skin to grow so heavy with sweat that it feels like it may just slip off your bones. For your bones to shake, like silverware in an earthquake.

What a feeling it is to see someone alive when they should be dead.

“I know you’re upset.”

In some sense, Lexa knew this was possible. She surely didn’t defend herself to be petty, her waxy beliefs for _nothing_. She truly did have faith that the girl she loved would return for her one day.

But this girl before Lexa, shoulder pinned against the wooden side of the tent by Lexa’s knife-

This girl is not the one Lexa loved.

“Lexa-“

But Lexa grits her teeth, readjusts her posture. She forces the emotion out of her frame, instead repressing it all to her eyes. Her shoulders lock with authority, and her jaw is clenched so tight she can feel the veins in her neck tensing.

She is the commander. Lifeless and cold.

She won’t break. Not even for Clarke-

Or, whoever this person is. Because it surely isn’t Clarke.

Clarke would have more honor.

“I know you’re upset,” She repeats, not moving from the knife inches away from her shoulder. “You have every right to be.”

Lexa clears her throat silently. There are too many things she wants to say, too many questions she has to ask. She feels anger and betrayal and confusion and _sadness_ , sadness for the girl Clarke has become. Lexa is shaking with everything she will never voice to anyone, not even Clarke.

_Not even Clarke_.

She clears her throat again and bends down for the knife she dropped, slowly so her eyes can fully take in Clarke.

And it’s bad.

It’s so, _so_ bad.

She’s covered in dirt, layer upon layer so thick Lexa’s surprised she isn’t suffocating. If she didn’t know any better, she’d mistake it for war paint.

Her hair is dirty, too. Half brown, from all the dirt, and half red, probably dyed with berries, probably with the poisonous kind, intentionally. There is too much of it, thick knotted ropes with dry frazzles here and there.

She looks like a monster.

And, Lexa believes, maybe that was Clarke’s intent. To not only discard the person she used to be, but to grow into skin that isn’t hers, that doesn’t fit her right. She’s dressed herself as a monster because that’s who she feels she is inside.

Lexa’s throat is suddenly too dry.

“Please say something,” Clarke says. She shakes her head. “I know you’ve been looking for me.”

Lexa’s knuckles grow white around the knife, barely inches off the ground.

“You say that as if the lookout party was sent by me.” Lexa’s voice has solidified a bit now, her posture rising to proper position. Her chin lifts, and she meets Clarke’s eyes.

There is nothing there. Nothing to hold onto, no hope, no faith-

Just emptiness.

“I searched for you because your people needed you, Clarke.”

There’s a silence as both Clarke and Lexa stone over completely, dark eyes challenging darker ones. There is sadness, and there is pain-

But what people do not understand is that anger is the combination of both. Anger is the fiercer, more violent form of any tiring emotion.

And Lexa feels it. More than she should.

More than anyone should.

“Lexa,” Clarke pauses, searching for better words, the _right_ words. “I know you’ve been taking care of them while I was gone-“

“Are you proud of that, Clarke?” Lexa’s grip around the knife tightens even more, so much that she begins to lose feeling in her fingers. “That you abandoned your people? That you left them to die?”

“I wouldn’t have left if I didn’t think they could handle themselves-“

“You _abandoned_ them, Clarke. Your friends, your family.” Lexa swallows, lowers her voice. “The people you claimed to _love_.”

“Don’t pin this on me. You know damn well I had every right to leave-“

“No,” Lexa shoves a sigh through her nose, turning away from Clarke to put the knife back on the table. “A leader never has just cause to leave their own people. You risk your life for them. You defend them, protect them. You do not get to leave simply because you are too troubled with your own demons to fight off theirs.”

The air grows still and stale, Lexa’s knife meeting wood the only sound in the tent. They can feel the winds outside. They can feel the vibrations of heavy boots pounding the ground.

They can feel the loss of everything they could have if they had stayed together. If Clarke had stayed. If _Lexa had stayed_ -

“Too troubled with my own _demons_?” Clarke’s voice is sharper than Lexa’s knife. “Have you forgotten what you did, Lexa?”

Lexa’s back is still turned. “I did what I had to in order to protect my people.”

“Bullshit,” Clarke says, and Lexa catches the sound of fabric tearing. “You couldn’t handle having your walls down.”

Clarke’s voice grows nearer.

“You made the mistake of letting someone in and you backed out the moment you realized it. You want to talk about demons? Let’s talk about the ones you think you hide so well.”

Lexa sticks her knife through the desk. She turns, unable to keep her mouth filtered any longer.

Clarke wants a fight, and the commander never backs down from a battle.

(But she doesn’t expect Clarke to be so close when she finally does turn around.)

She blinks a few times, but keeps her head held high. “You’re hiding.” The words burn her throat. “You know I’ve touched the topic you don’t want to approach and you think you can escape it by turning it on me. This conversation is not about me, Clarke.”

“It _is_ about you, Lexa. You left us to _die_. You left _me_ to die. I trusted you and then-“

“And then what, Clarke? Are you telling me you wouldn’t have done the same? That you’d’ve find another way, that you would’ve stayed and put all of your people at risk for _love?”_

Something lodges itself inside of both Clarke’s and Lexa’s throats. Lexa could lie and say she didn’t mean to actually use the word love, that she’s just upset.

But she _did_ mean to use it. She _did_ love Clarke.

This conversation, however, is making her reconsider.

Clarke lowers her voice to just above a whisper, brow dipped violently.

“I would’ve fought harder.”

“There is no sense in fighting a war that cannot be won.”

“You know, Lexa,” Clarke almost whines now, sounding childish. Lexa’s picked up on this before, how Clarke refuses to let a fight die without flames. “You say all this like you resent me, like you’re glad you left us at the mountain. And yet, you brought them in. You combined the Sky People with the Grounders and treated them with the same trust. If you’re so mad at me, why are you helping my people?”

This is the part of the story where Lexa breaks for the first time.

“You _left_ them, Clarke!” Lexa shouts, taking a step forward so Clarke steps back. “You left everyone without warning. You left them without any idea where to go.”

“That’s not true-“

“You left them without a leader. You left them without hope.” Lexa’s voice breaks at the next sentence.

“You let them think you were _dead_.”

There is no longer a steady silence punctuating words. Instead, there’s Lexa’s harsh breathing, prepping her lungs for a scream that’s quickly approaching. It’s like everything-the way she left her in shambles, how she managed to lose her voice though she isolated her tears-is rising to the surface, ready to spill over.

Lexa might have left Clarke, but she didn’t do so without a plan to come back.

Clarke left even after they reunited, made amends. Clarke is the one who ran out after the truce was cemented, after the Grounders and the Sky People became one sole entity.

Clarke is the one who did this to herself. Not Lexa.

(Or at least it seems as much right now, anyways.)

“Everyone told me to forget about you, Clarke.” Her mouth is too dry, her tongue this awkward obstacle between words. Her eyes quiver as they snake across Clarke’s face. While there is dirt there, and even some blood, Lexa knows these aren’t the main divisors. They don’t cover up the person Clarke used to be.

No, the change is in Clarke’s eyes.

It’s always the eyes.

“They found a body, Clarke.” Lexa continues. “A blonde female, of your height.”

Clarke can hear Lexa’s voice dying out, breaking, thinning. For a split second, she almost feels bad.

Almost.

Lexa glances down, her head tilting slightly. “Her face had been scratched out by some animal. Everyone assumed it was you.”

_“Maybe it would’ve been better if it was.”_

Lexa leans back, frantically searching Clarke’s features for a sign that that sentence didn’t just come out of-

But Clarke’s eyes hang heavily toward the ground, her lips a sad line. _Shame._

She meant every last one of those words.

Lexa is furious.

“You…” She steps forward, eyes deep and dark like a storm is brewing within them. “You are the most _selfish,”_ She steps forward again, forcing Clarke back. “Self-loathing, _pathetic excuse for a-“_

Lexa stops only when she realizes she’s crying.

Not a lot, not nearly enough to prove she _does_ have emotions, but one or two tears heavy with the shattering of her cold facade.

The Commander does not cry. _Lexa_ does not cry, not like _this._

She clears her throat, rejecting Clarke’s gaze. She swipes the tears away with a hand quickly, angrily.

“Lexa-“

“You made me believe I had a chance, Clarke.” Lexa pauses, braving Clarke full-on. The tears have lightened both of their stares. “What I did caused you so much pain that I did not know how to reduce it. When you agreed to the ceremony that would unite our people, I thought you were beginning to understand why I did what I did. You told me you forgave me, Clarke.”

“Lexa-“

“But then you ran out on not just me, but the people you were supposed to lead. I hated myself for what I did to you, Clarke, I did. Knowing you were out there, alone, defenseless-“ Again, Lexa clears her throat.

“I thought you had been captured. I thought the Ice Queen-“

Clarke says softly, “You thought you let what happened to Costia, happen to me.”

“I know you do not resent me, Clarke.” Lexa self-consciously wipes away another tear. “Perhaps you resent yourself, but if it were that serious you would not be here. You know your people will not accept you straight away, especially not after making them believe you are dead.”

Lexa reaches behind herself, fingers wrapping around the knife imbedded into the wooden block.

She rips it out.

“So tell me,” She waits a moment, just long enough so Clarke can comprehend what she’s doing, then rushes forward.

Clarke lets out an audible wince as the knife digs into the skin just below her chin.

“Why,” Lexa says behind the knife, her voice a whisper. “Why are you here?”

Clarke shouldn’t feel this afraid. She knows Lexa won’t hurt her, can feel Lexa’s hand shaking, fumbling around the knifes grip. Clarke knows Lexa would give her life before letting the person she loves(d) die.

And Clarke knows Lexa loves her. Maybe not right now, maybe not soon. But somewhere buried beneath all this hate and confusion and _betrayal,_ Lexa loves Clarke.

Clarke leans into the knife. Lexa immediately pulls back. It is all the confirmation either of them need.

Clarke’s voice shakes, “I need your help.” She grabs onto Lexa’s knife, and Lexa allows her to lower it.

“I need you, Lexa.”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh thank u guys so much for all the feedback and kudos it means a ton!! it'd be great if u could keep leaving me feedback. thanks again

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh idk what this is but let me know if i should continue??? thanks


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